See you in the morning! Our text coverage for tomorrow's race will begin at 6 AM local time (8 AM EST). We'll have live athlete tracking for the event. Our video coverage of the race begins at 6:30 AM local time, 8:30 AM EST.

The temperature is 58 degrees Fahrenheit (14.4 C) right now (5 AM). The weather man is calling for a cool day - the expected high is 67 degrees (19.4 C) with winds from the southwest at 18 mph (30 kph). There also saying there's a 40% of showers today - kind of a surprise since we're not used to even seeing clouds here in Tempe, let alone rain!

Crossing our fingers on the rain! A look at the radar had the showers heading just a bit north of us, so we're hoping we might luck out and avoid getting wet here in Tempe today.

Catching up with a few of the pros: I just got back from the transition area, where I managed to catch up with a few of the pros. Chrissie Wellington is in great spirits this morning and appears ready to rip this course apart. Leanda Cave says she is feeling pretty good this morning - an impressive feat in itself after her top-10 finish in Kona, a win at Ironman 70.3 Miami and a runner-up finish in Clearwater last Saturday. Rachel Joyce, fifth in Kona, also seems to be both fit and in a great mood as she prepares for today's race. I also managed to have a chat with defending men's champion, Jordan Rapp. He also seems to be in a great head-space this morning.

A press release from Rasmus Henning, one of the race favorites here today: Rasmus Henning is hoping to redeam his Hawaii performance and qualify for next year's race at Ironman Arizona on Sunday

The new qualification rules and a 24th place finish at this year's Ironman Hawaii means that 35 year old Rasmus Henning has to get a good result in another ironman event to have enough points to start the 2011 Ironman World Championships - and this only six weeks after the disappointing race in Kona October 9th.

The Danish ironman athlete hopes to get his qualification secured this year and to end his season on a high note. This in a very competitive field as other top athletes from Hawaii are also points hunting in Arizona due to the new rules.

"My main priority is to get to the finish line so I get my points. I reckon a 3-4th place will be enough to be almost sure I'm on the starting line in Kona next year, maybe topping it off with a 70.3 race in the spring. It is really important for me to get a good result in a race where I perform well, so I can close the season with a feeling I'm on the top of my game again."

Hawaii was mentally rough
"My race in Hawaii this year was the opposite of what I had hoped and dreamed of, so I've had to deal a lot mentally with that experience. At the same time the family and I had to pack down our home to move to Playitas, Fuerteventura for six months just after we returned from Hawaii. When we got to Playitas I could suddenly feel how stressfull the last many months leading up to Hawaii had been for me. Everything had been really intense. And the training was going really bad as well so I felt I could use a break. But I had good talks with my coach Michael Krüger and mig mental coach Ulrich Ghisler and we made a plan for the last weeks leading up to Arizona. Then I began to perform better in training and that was helping me get into competition mode again," Rasmus Henning says.

"I think I have had too many big things going on in my life at the same time that brought a lot of stress. And the sum of all these things probably made me more fragile than I was able to understand. So I'm guessing it didn't take much to put me off balance and when I got a bad swim start in Hawaii where I had to swim over to paddle boarders when the gun went off and - I found out after the race - bruising a rib in doing so - it threw me off my game and the stuff I have done a thousand times, e.g what happened in T1, suddenly didn't work for me at all and ended up hampering me physically on a day where I felt nothing worked out for me," says an honest and reflected Rasmus Henning who focus on what is ahead now.

Uncertain form 6 weeks after Hawaii
A strong field will try to make the best of each other even though Hawaii isn't far away yet.

"It's hard to tell how far away I am from my top form but I can feel that I'm not 100 percent yet. My training sessions is a little up and down at the moment and if I end up finishing fourth after having a solid personal race, I will be satisfied," the Dane says.

The water temperature today is 61 degrees Fahrenheit (16.1 C), which is rather cool. The pros have to be in the water by 6:40, so they'll have at least ten minutes to warm up (and try and stay warm) before the gun goes off.

Sorry about the race clock - the start time was inadvertently set for 6:45, but the pros begin at 6:50. The age group athletes will get started at 7 AM.

Some of the folks we're expected to see at the front in the men's race are James Bonney and Rasmus Henning. In the women's race we're likely to see Leanda Cave as one of the frontrunners.

It looks like Rasmus Henning is the man in second place right now. We're not sure who the leader is, but we think it might be John Dahlz.

Dahlz has broken clear and now has a lead of about 25m on a group of three. I'm guessing that the three men chasing are likely Rasmus Henning, Matt Reed and James Bonney.

We're also wondering if that might have been Leanda Cave up with that lead group of women's swimmers.

Dahlz continues to fly through the swim. He's well ahead of the rest of the men at this point - he should be finished the swim soon.